Education

Biography

Richard Avramenko (Ph.D. Georgetown, 2005) has taught both Political Science and Integrated Liberal Studies at the University of Wisconsin since the Fall of 2005. His main areas of interest are ancient and continental political thought. He teaches Western Culture: Political, Economic, and Social Thought, Tocqueville's Democracy in America, Politics and Literature, Ancient and Medieval Political Thought, the Romance of War, Nietzsche, Methods of Political Theory, or whatever strikes him as interesting and appropriate.

Avramenko has written articles on topics such as Plato, Aristotle, Xenophon, St. Augustine, Dostoevsky, Tocqueville, Nietzsche, Voegelin, Heidegger, Canadian identity politics, mortgage and housing policy. He is the author of Courage: The Politics of Life and Limb, and has co-edited books on friendship (Friendship and Politics: Essays in Political Thought), Dostoevsky (Dostoevsky's Political Thought), and aristocratic political thought (Aristocratic Souls in Democratic Times) and is currently working on a new book manuscript: The Crush of Democracy: Tocqueville and the Egalitarian Mind.

When not thinking deep thoughts, Avramenko can be found running somewhere in Waunakee, biking somewhere in Dane County, SCUBA diving somewhere in British Columbia, playing hockey somewhere in Madison, fishing in the North Woods, or just generally being "a kaleidoscopic man, a man of many different humors, fair and colorful as the city itself" (Republic, Book VIII).

Richard Avramenko, "Freedom from Freedom: On the Metaphysics of Liberty in Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment," in Dostoevsky's Political Thought, Richard Avramenko and Lee Trepanier, eds. (Lexington Books, 2013).